I just received the sad news that Collings Foundations B-17 Nine-o-nine crashed at Bradley Airport in Connecticut… 
I have a piece of her skin in my hand, thinking about the crew and their loved ones.
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Oh no. That is horrible news. I don’t even want to think about the crew and passengers.
Track data looks like it struggled immediately after takeoff perhaps?
Yeah, sure was a short flight…
Any news of the crew and pax?
One report of the crew getting out.
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That’s extremely sad news. I’m pretty upset about this. Another piece of history gone.
Hope the crew are safe and well as reported. Such a shame.
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oh geez. So sad. Such a beautiful and historic machine. Lost.
But it’s only a machine. some of The people in it are alive. So that’s great.
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Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be the case…
But reports are diverging, so there’s hope.
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I’ve also read rumours that nr4 engine failed. That would be the outboard right wing engine, right?
Yes.
FYI, Sport is giving a little info on A5P discord. Hospital reporting 6 arrivals: 3 critical, 2 moderate, 1 minor, and some fatalities I’m afraid.
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Holy cow. So sad.
I went for a ride in the plane a little over 10 years ago…
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Thanks for the update. @sport is a very nice guy and I very much hope hes coping with the loss of friends and colleagues ok.
Sad situation
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Someone is claiming to have knowledge that the aircraft was fueled with Jet-A instead of AVGAS. I don’t know if this is true or not, but would certainly explain the outcome given the B-17 should be able to operate in an OK fashion after the loss of a single engine.
I’d caution that this is totally unverified information and may be completely false.
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It certainly should. I was thinking it couldn’t feather, or something…
All speculation, of course, but if she was tanked with JetA1, that would certainly be a trap as the engines probably are fed from collector tanks that, in turn, would feed from the wing tanks.
Yeah that would knock out your engines fast if you open up the throttle and stymie performance on the remaining three as long as they work.
AVGAS is more like gasoline whereas JET-A1 is pretty much Diesel with a different octane level. A gasturbine doesn’t care what you feed it, piston engines do because they are designed to ignite the fuel at a specific compression level. Diesel auto ignites under the compression in a diesel engine, gasoline needs a spark. There’s a lot more going on but that’s the short story.
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I saw an image and it looked like the plane crashed into fuel storage tanks…
Maybe “crashed into Jet A” instead of “fueled with…”
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I read they hit de-icing tanks.
Condolences for all those that were injured and perished in this most unfortunate incident.
Somewhere I read that multiple engines had failed on 909 and my first thought after reading that blurb was to wonder if a fuel mix up was a possibility. Hopefully the NTSB report will shed some light on what happened to 909?
Aluminum Overcast was at Chino in 2013 and lost one engine, number 3, and it was able to land safely with a full load of fuel and passengers so remembering that incident it crossed my mind that it almost had to be multiple engines that failed for 909 to go down. Aluminum Overcast had also lost the engine on its takeoff and then had to do a quick go around and land.
There were at least two Planes of Fame volunteers on Aluminum Overcast that day, probably more, and one of them was our WW2 veteran of 30 missions over Europe as the ball turret gunner of the B-17 Kismet.
Wheels
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